How My Old Employer IBM Is Paying Off the Government to Destroy Their Competition

The Senate’s immigration bill contains a tech industry handout for some companies like IBM and Accenture. It would virtually eliminate competitors in the market for highly-skilled immigrant labor.

Multiple sources close to the immigration debate have told Breitbart News that the provision is a key reason the corporate titans helped build support for passage of the immigration bill in the Senate. They fought hard to pass the law in the Senate and have been strategizing to get final passage in the House.

At issue is an overlooked change to the H1B visa system, used primarily by technology companies seeking foreign scientific talent. Companies like Cognizant Solutions, based in New Jersey and Tata Consultancy, based in India, bring foreign engineers into the country on H1B visas and then contract out their services to small and medium sized businesses that need help with specific projects.

Companies like these act almost like third-party human resources departments for businesses not big enough to recruit H1B talent from overseas in specific Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. As such, these companies are big competitors to IBM and Accenture, who also provide technology services, but with a different business model. Because some of these companies operating in the US are headquartered in India, the business press refers to them as “Indian IT Industry.”

The Senate passed amnesty bill, however, would change the law to prohibit an H1B visa being issued to an employee of a company that contracts out technology services to other businesses. Companies like Congnizant and Tata would have their entire business model prohibited by federal law. IBM and Accenture, who ironically do a significant amount of their services work overseas, would gain valuable business as a result.